Stocks and oil are rallying

Google Finance Stocks and oil are rallying on Thursday as oil looks to shake off two days of losses.

Near 1:45 pm ET, the Dow was up 91 points, the S&P 500 was 17 points, and the Nasdaq was up 50 points.

At these levels, stocks were near their highs of the day as the Dow closes in on 18,000 and the S&P 500 sits just about 10 points below its all time high.

Markets were higher on Thursday though the situation in Europe between Greece and its creditors remains unsettled as the outcome of talks between eurozone finance ministers on Wednesday saw no agreements made between the two sides.

The price of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was up better than 4% to trade near $51 a barrel. The last couple days had seen oil slip, falling to near $48 a barrel.

In economic news, the January report on retail sales disappointed, with headline sales falling 0.8%, more than the 0.4% decline that was expected. The bright spot in the retail sales report was from restaurants and bars, which saw sales rise more than 11% over the same month last year.

Initial jobless claims also disappointed, rising to 304,000 last week up from 278,000 the prior week.

In stock news, American Express shares were down about 6% after the company said it would end its co-branding agreement with Costco effective March 2016.

Tesla shares were also lower, falling more than 6%, after the company last night reported earnings and reported vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter that disappointed.